Love Her To Death
by domina tempore
Summary: He loved her too much to let her endure this living death... A tag to "The Last Man", how Teyla died.


_Author's Note: I hated the episode "The Last Man"--- HATED it--- but I wanted an actual reason for Teyla to die. They never found out in the ep, but here's an idea that I had to explain it. It's a very, very dark fic; and I apologize for that. But I was attacked by like, evil plot bunnies from the land of dark and terrible character killers! LOL. No, seriously, I had no idea when it started that it was going to turn out like this.._

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**Love Her to Death**

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Teyla screamed, her body wracked with pain as another contraction ripped through her.

"Very good!" Michael praised. "A few more of those and he'll be out; and all of this will be over."

"You're going to kill him!" Teyla gritted, spasming on the table.

"Relax. You know that I need him too badly to let anything happen to him. I promise you that your son will be fine."

"And what of his mother?" Teyla demanded. "I have asked you before, and you ignored me then; but I _must _know! I will not let you take my child from me!"

"Of course not, Teyla. You know that my skill is more in science than child care; you will remain with me and care for him; and in return I will let you live. As long as you do exactly as I say, no harm will come to you." He stroked her bangs back from her sweat-dampened forehead. "Who knows? You may even come to be comfortable with me." His last few words were cut off as Teyla gave a deafening cry, and her son was born.

Michael wrapped the baby in a blanket and lifted him to show his mother.

"There, Teyla," he said. "See your son!" Tears of pain and exhaustion and relief and love all came together in Teyla's eyes. Her hands flexed against the bindings that held them, reaching for her son.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Michael whispered triumphantly, cradling the baby against his chest and looking into his tiny face, already red and scrunched from crying. "When he is old enough, I believe that he will serve me well for more than just his genes. I feel in him the potential to carry on the legacy that I will leave behind." He started to walk away, and Teyla's eyes widened in horror.

"Where are you taking him?" she demanded, all of his words registering but the only part that seemed to matter the fact that he was taking her son away from her before she had even had a chance to hold him. "You promised that you would not take my son away from me!"

"He will know his mother," Michael assured her. "But at a time of my choosing, when he has learned that the first and only voice he may listen to is that of his master; my voice!"

"Michael!" she shrieked.

"You will see him," he said. "And I promise that he will get the best of care, until he is ready to meet you."

"No!" tears spilled from her eyes as he left, and the door closed behind him. When he was gone, the cuffs on her wrists released themselves, and she rolled off of the table and onto her hands and knees, reaching out and crying for her son.

"My baby," she whispered brokenly. "My baby."

She stayed there for a long time, too strong to just pass out and let the pain fade but too weak to get up or even drag herself over to the door, which Michael had not bothered to lock. After what seemed like a thousand eternities of longing, she heard that door open, and looked up past her tangled hair to see a shadow slip through the crack. But though familiar, it was not Michael, and it had not brought her child back to her. She let her head rest on the ground--- she had long since given up trying to support herself on her shaking arms--- and listened to that shadow pace around the room, and gradually come nearer.

"I am so sorry, Teyla," she trembled when she felt a hand on her back. But that voice... it was Kanaan's voice; and it was more sane and lucid than she had ever heard it before. "I wish that there was another way, I truly do. But I know what he plans to do to you; and I know that he plans to use you to force our son into obedience. And you yourself said that we cannot allow him to win."

"Kanaan..." she whimpered. "My baby; Toran-John..."

"You have chosen a good name for him," Kanaan whispered. "And I will make sure that he knows how great a hero his mother was; how she died so that all of this horror could somehow be undone. I will tell him how much you loved him." Teyla felt a needle slide into her neck, and the world began to grow blurry before her eyes.

"I do this because I love you, Teyla. And I don't want our son to have to watch you die. I am sorry." There were no tears in his voice; he was stone cold and perfectly serious; he had obviously planned this for some time, and he had forced himself long ago to accept it.

Teyla tried to lift her head, but the world was spinning around her, and she couldn't move her limbs properly. Distantly, she heard the door open again as a kiss was pressed to her forehead; and she saw Kanaan stand up to meet the figure who had entered.

"_What have you done_?!" she head Michael's voice roar as the poison Kanaan had ejected her with did it's job.

"It is better than anything she would have endured from you!" Kanaan challenged. Michael pulled out a gun and without another word shot his one-time servant in the chest. He fell over dead, and the last thing that Teyla saw was Michael's face as he knelt before her and pushed back her hair to look into her eyes.

"I can't believe that he would kill you," he murmured, as the last of her life faded away and her eyes darkened.

"Toran... John." she choked brokenly, wishing that she could have held her baby. That she could have brought him to Atlantis, where he would have grown up safe and loved; not turned into a monster by this monster that she had helped to create. She wished that she could have seen him one last time; told him that she loved him. She wished that she could have touched him.

And then she died.

Fin.

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_Author's Note: I hate that my 30th fic had to be so dark and sad... :'( I promise a happy one next time to make up for it! Or, go read my fic "Dancer"; that one is fun! :D_


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